Fitch was dropped from the organization after a short-lived but well-publicized holdout from granting the UFC lifetime rights to his likeness for an upcoming video-game release. Fitch, though, eventually signed, and the Gono fight was expected to go on as planned.

During today’s taping today for Friday’s edition of “Inside MMA,” Fitch confirmed the fight has been signed.

Joining Fitch on the panel was veteran middleweight Joey Villasenor and MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) lead staff reporter John Morgan. The episode debuts Friday at 9:30 p.m. ET on HDNet.

UFC President Dana White had cut Fitch from the organization on Nov. 19, and he threatened to drop other members of the American Kickboxing Academy and clients of Zinkin Entertainment & Sports Management. White mentioned that the fighters didn’t want to be “partners” with the UFC. Fitch said it was the result of his (and others’) reluctance to sign lifetime deals for the videogame, which developer THQ plans to release in 2009.

After a call from UFC co-owner and CEO Lorenzo Fertitta the following day, Fitch ultimately relented and signed the deal. He and no other AKA fighters have been cut from the UFC during the fallout.
In fact, the UFC recently added AKA heavyweight Christian Wellisch (whom White said he had originally cut alongside Fitch) to the UFC 94 preliminary card in a bout with Jake O’Brien.

Fitch, who shares the UFC’s record for the most consecutive victories (eight) with Royce Gracie and Anderson Silva, returns to competition for the first time since his August title loss to Georges St. Pierre. Fitch suffered a tough-fought unanimous-decision defeat, which snapped a 15-fight win streak that went back to July 2003. Despite the loss, he’s still considered one of the UFC’s top 170-pound contenders.

Fitch had been scheduled to fight Gono once before — earlier this year at UFC 82 in Columbus, Ohio. However, Gono had to pull out of the fight due to a hand injury. It would have been Gono’s second UFC fight (he debuted with a submission victory over Tamdan McCrory in November 2007), but instead, his sophomore effort came at UFC 89, where he dropped a close split decision to Dan Hardy.

For the latest on UFC 94, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of MMAjunkie.com.

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UFC 94 features a champion-vs.-champion main event between St. Pierre, the UFC’s welterweight champ, and UFC lightweight title-holder B.J. Penn. Only St. Pierre’s belt is on the line for the five-round fight, which is a rematch from their original meeting in March 2006 (St. Pierre won a close split decision.)

The UFC expects big pay-per-view numbers for the event, much like its other SuperBowl weekend events, and the organization recently concluded a three-stop tour (Las Vegas, Montreal and Honolulu) to promote the card. Additionally, Spike TV will roll out a three-part preview series entitled “UFC Primetime: St. Pierre vs. Penn” to hype the event beginning on Jan. 14.

Although the UFC hasn’t officially announced the Fitch-Gono fight, one would reasonably expect it to be on the night’s main card. The two other official and recently announced main-card bouts are Lyoto Machida vs. Thiago Silva and Stephan Bonnar vs. Jon Jones. A rumored bout between Karo Parisyan and Dong Hyun Kim will likely take the fifth spot on the televised card.

Is that televised card enough for the UFC to register 600,000 to 700,000 — or more — PPV buys for UFC 94?

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